Effect of Permeability on Foam-model parameters - An Integrated Approach from Coreflood Experiments through to Foam Diversion Calculations

Foam reservoir simulations commonly suffer from poor foam parameter definition which makes their predictions ambiguous. To reduce uncertainty in foam parameter estimation, extensive core-flood experiments under variable experimental and physical conditions are required. A principal physical property which can influence foam parameters is permeability. We present a set of steady-state foam-flood experimental data for four sandstones with different permeabilities, ranging between 6 and 1900 mD, and with similar porosity. We derive permeability-dependent foam parameters with two modelling approaches, those of Boeije and Rossen (2013) and a non-linear least-square minimization approach (Eftekhari et al., 2015). The two approaches can yield significantly different foam parameters. Thus we critically assess their ability in deriving reliable foam parameter estimates. In particular, the way the two approaches treat shear-thinning foam behavior and foam coalescence is discussed. The foam parameter set acquired from the latter approach is further used as input in foam diversion calculations: this serves to evaluate mobility predictions in non-communicating reservoir layers to the foam parameters. This study aims to provide a framework to integrate experimental work, modelling and simple qualitative diversion calculations to provide a background for the upscaling of foam studies, with particular focus to heterogeneous systems.